[This is Part III of a five-part essay; if you haven't yet seen them, first read Part I and Part II.]

While the media generally goes into hysterics every time the Texas State Board of Education meets, with commentators hurling mockery, outrage and vitriol at the board members, there is a total lack of interest when other states’ boards of education meet for the same purpose. Yet Texas is not the only state that influences the content of American schooling: a few other states also determine textbook standards that end up being used in other parts of the country. California, in particular, is also an important textbook market for publishers. Yet mysteriously, one never hears of any controversy erupting when the California State Board of Education meets to decide the content of textbooks used throughout the state and in many other school districts around the country which shun the Texas-approved textbooks.

Why is that? Could it simply be that California-approved textbooks aren’t as politicized as those in Texas?

Quite the contrary. If anything, the textbooks approved by the California State Board of Education are even more politicized than Texas textbooks, and more ideologically biased. So: Why does the media ignore what happens in California textbooks? Because the state’s bias goes the other way. California-approved social studies textbooks are politically correct in the extreme, with multiculturalism and “social justice” as the defining characteristics. The pressure groups and board members setting policy for California’s (and hence a substantial portion of America’s) textbooks exceed their Texan counterparts in their extremism, but since California pushes the “correct” kind of extremism, you never hear about it.

And I’m not just talking about overt political bias, as exemplified by the previously-mentioned A People’s History of the United States and countless similar study materials with a blatant left-leaning slant. I’m talking about a subtler form of indoctrination.

To make the list in California, books must be scrupulously stereotype free: No textbook can show African Americans playing sports, Asians using computers, or women taking care of children. Anyone who stays in textbook publishing long enough develops radar for what will and won’t get past the blanding process of both the conservative and liberal watchdogs.

More on this in a moment.

But first let’s look at another example cited in this essay by The American Textbook Council, illuminating what has happened to California’s (and the nation’s) curriculum in recent decades. If you’re young enough to have experienced this kind of schooling yourself, the example below will not be a surprise to you; but if you’re over a certain age, and haven’t been paying attention to changes in American education, you’ll scratch your head at some of the names in this textbook’s list of America’s greatest heroes:

In fact this list is highly unrepresentative of American history. This “American history” cobbled together from “representative” national heroes conforms to multicultural ideology, but it fails. The continuing effort to make diversity along lines of gender and ethnicity into the essence of the national past comes up short and cheapens the narrative.

In this popular textbook, to counteract the unfortunately necessary inclusion of the three Dead White Male presidents on the list (Washington, Lincoln and Jackson), the publishers selected an array of second-tier historical figures whose ethnic diversity is beyond reproach — and also ensured that the genders were represented equally as well. And while I have no problem with students learning about Queen Liluokalanai and the rest of the crew, in context, I fear that America’s children are coming away with the impression that these really are the most important people in our nation’s history, and not just a list assembled at random to satisfy multicultural pressure groups.

The teachers and educators seem to have forgotten that kids don’t even know the basics yet, so that when you feed them an alternate set of facts which were only meant to counteract the longstanding un-PC status quo, the students in their innocence and ignorance learn only that alternate reality and never learn that status quo it was meant to neutralize.

The Travesty of Psychological Modeling

The entire drive for enforced equal ethnic and gender representation in history books is based on a false premise. Probably without even realizing it, politically motivated educators are borrowing unproven theories from psychology and applying them en masse to schoolkids. Relying on notions of “psychological modeling,” the unspoken assumption behind much of modern education is that children are incapable of forging their own personalities or paths through life, but are strictly limited to imitating the role models they perceive while growing up. Thus, according to the theory, a girl who grows up in the 1950s and sees no images or discussions of female firefighters will reach adulthood convinced of the impossibility of ever becoming a firefighter; furthermore, she will never attempt to or even want to become a firefighter, thinking it beyond her reach. And so in the next generation there will be no female firefighters either, thus once again no one on whom a young potential female firefighter might model her aspirations, and the cycle will repeat forever. Similarly, the theory goes, if a child grows up in a gang-infested neighborhood, and the only adults he ever sees are gang members, then when that child grows up he will almost certainly become a gang member too, because that’s all he knows: the gang members become his role models. And then he becomes the role model for the next generation. The principle extends across the social landscape: Kids who grow up being abused by their parents will themselves become abusers. Kids who grow up in a milieu filled with academics and intellectuals will themselves tend to become intellectuals too. And so on.

In an attempt to upend the status quo of this multi-tiered self-perpetuating class system, educators have sought to break the cycle of negative role modeling in minority communities by using the school system as a tool to present alternate positive role models for the children to emulate. Sounds almost reasonable on the surface. But there’s a terrible, terrible price to pay for this psychological self-help gimmick: In order to create a satisfactory array of positive archetypes, educators have begun to twist historical reality to suit their requirements, and engage in egregious revisionism to artificially construct the needed pantheon of role models to match every imaginable ethnic and social sub-grouping.

It is precisely for this reason that contemporary textbooks are filled with “heroes” and purportedly pivotal historical figures who are totally unknown to anyone over, say, 40 years old. That’s because if a particular field of endeavor or crucial moment in history was populated mostly by straight white males, the revisionist textbook framers seek out and focus on peripheral figures who fit the necessary ethnic profile — inevitably (considering the limited space in the textbook and a finite amount of class time) to the exclusion of authentically more significant individuals.

Illustration by Buzzsawmonkey

Forging a New Reality

Let’s now revisit the first example cited above, in which “No textbook can show African Americans playing sports, Asians using computers, or women taking care of children.” Let’s be completely frank here: Women tend to (and tend to want to) take care of children; African-Americans tend to dominate the types of professional sports popular in America (football, basketball, baseball, track-and-field, etc.) for whatever sociological or physiological reasons; and Asians often pursue academic, scientific, or business careers, which these days pretty much requires extensive computer expertise. In other words, by any measurable criteria, on average these stereotypes have a kernel of truth and are based on real-world facts: Women do tend to be the ones raising children, African-Americans do tend to participate in and excel at athletics, and some Asians do gravitate toward careers that involve the use of computers.

But if the stereotypes are at least partly true, and are not negative stereotypes, then what is the harm in having at least a few pictures in a textbook which depict reality accurately, to at least balance out all the other wishful-thinking pictures? After all, if you walk through the real American landscape, everywhere you go you’ll see with your own eyes mothers taking care of children; if you turn on the TV or look at a magazine or see a billboard or actually attend a sporting event, you will see African-Americans engaging in sports; and if you go to any major university, you’ll see Asians using computers. What’s so taboo about these social realities that they need to be covered up or denied?

Just when we thought we had gotten to the bottom of the story, we have to get out our shovels and keep digging. Since progressive educators believe the dodgy theory that if you depict a behavior to a young person, then he or she will grow up imitating that behavior, then the reason to not include in textbooks any images of women raising children or Asians using computers is that you don’t want women to raise children or Asians to use computers. The theory goes: over time, girls in the class, not perceiving any images of motherhood during their education, will upon reaching adulthood tend to reject motherhood as a life-course; and Asians, not seeing in their textbooks any role models pursuing academic careers, will grow up to seek out non-academic jobs. And so on.

But why would anyone want that? I reject that this “modeling” is even effective in the first place, but setting that issue aside for the moment: What is the motivation of the people (i.e. the progressive educational establishment) who seek to restructure through textbook manipulation the existing self-selected social landscape?

The answer is almost too obvious to grasp: They want a social revolution. Part of this drive is nihilistic: However things currently are, they want to negate these realities and tear them down, for the purported reason of “evening things out.” And part of it is what might be called the desire for “class vengeance”: to upend the existing social order and usher in a new one in which the roles are reversed. In the case of the California textbook authors, to create a society in which men raise children and women go off to work; in which African-Americans don’t play sports, but (presumably) pursue academic careers; and in which Asians reject intellectual achievement in favor of — well, I guess, sports.

This reversing or (in the best-case scenario) leveling out of class and socio-ethnic differences is a hallmark of Marxist theory. I’m not talking about the strict economic aspect of Marxism — I’m speaking of social Marxism, or postmodern Marxism. The difference between 19th century classical Marxism and 21st century neo-Marixsm is a vast topic far beyond the scope of this essay, and for which there is insufficient vocabulary to discuss without endless scuffles over the very definitions of terms. I’m speaking of the modern leftist belief that it is not only possible but necessary to eradicate social and economic differences in order to achieve a completely “fair” world. There are many proposed ways to achieve this, but the most subtle involve the indoctrination of youth so that they grow up embracing the “social justice” model. Critics of this Marx-inspired drive — myself included — point out that in the first place it’s not even truly possible to neutralize the natural stratification of society, and therefore that the process of attempting to “even things out” inevitably ends up (as it always has in the past) a bloody mess leading to a repressive result; but secondly and most importantly, even if a Marxist utopia ever was achieved, very quickly a new social stratification would emerge, and the “problem” — if you insist on perceiving it as a problem — of social/class differences would start all over again, leading to another bloody revolution and yet another repressive social order, ad infinitum.

One needs only to look at what happens in the aftermaths of real communist revolutions to see that class stratification resurfaces almost immediately after the Old Order is annihilated. The landlords are out, the cadres are in; aristocrats are supplanted by apparatchiks and elite party members. The privileged are demoted, but that doesn’t mean that the very notion of privilege is abandoned. Hell no: all that happens is that someone else gets to become the superior. Which is entirely predictable, because the natural variation among individuals and in environments will inevitably lead to stratification, no matter how hard you try to suppress it. The perfectly egalitarian communist utopia is an unattainable pipe dream, and any attempt to bring about this impossible society will only lead to pointless misery for a majority of the population.

What Happens in California Doesn’t Stay in California

Well, you may be thinking, at least Texas is immune from this craziness. Thank God for Texas!

Uh … I hate to be the one to break it to you, but…

Even Texas is not safe from the multicultural mania. Remember that the Texas State Board of Education is not a solid conservative bloc. The board actually reflects pretty accurately the political makeup of the state’s population: currently, the 15-member board is composed of 5 liberal Democrats, 7 or 8 conservative Republicans, and 2 or 3 more moderate Republicans (depending on where you draw the line between moderate and conservative). And while the board may vote along strictly partisan lines on some hot-button issues, there is also plenty of jockeying and compromise on issues that don’t draw as much media attention. On occasion, the liberal members get their way, or at least influence the outcome of a particular vote toward a compromise position.

At one meeting last March, the TSBE descended into chaos and name-calling over demands by liberals on the board for greater ethnic representation (i.e. tokenism) in history textbooks. Two specific disputes cropped up in the news reports: one, the insistence by the outvoted liberal board members that students be taught the names of the eight Texans of Hispanic heritage who fought at the Alamo; and two, that ethnic minority Medal of Honor winners be highlighted as heroes. After one of the liberal members threw a tantrum and stomped out, the rest of the board apparently compromised and partly caved in to demands for more minority Medal of Honor winners. Out of curiosity, I wanted to learn exactly who made the cut and why, but after an extensive search I found only twopapers in the whole country that reported the specific names which the School Board members were arguing about:

For hours, the State Board of Education’s Hispanic and African American members clashed with its Anglo majority Thursday over how to present history to the state’s 4.7 million public school children.

Much of the conflict centered on the racial balance of the historical figures to be included in textbooks starting in the 2011-2012 school year. Temperatures boiled when sex or religion got added to the mix.

Members grew increasingly distraught over the process as they groped toward a preliminary adoption of new socials studies curriculum standards, set for today.

And one, Mary Helen Berlanga, D-Corpus Christi, walked out shortly after 5 p.m. as the board added two more white men to a standard identifying the contributions of Texas leaders, Lawrence “Sul” Ross and John Nance Garner.

“We can just pretend that this is White America. Hispanics don’t exist,” she said, as she left.

…

Race and discrimination provoked sharp debate. Berlanga attached copies of old signs on her desk: “This park was given for White people only. Mexicans and Negroes stay out,” read one. But she failed to get any Republican support for her amendment identifying minority Medal of Honor recipients.

Bradley said he wanted kids to learn about Medal of Honor recipients but questioned Berlanga’s criteria, saying, “We are doing it by skin color, and I object to that.”

After she left, the board voted to have students to discuss Medal of Honor recipients of all races and gender, such as Vernon J. Baker, Alvin York and Roy Benavidez – respectively, an African American hero from World War II, an Anglo who fought in World War I, and a Hispanic hero from the Vietnam War.

…

Rick Agosto, D-San Antonio, said he felt frustrated because Hispanic children are entitled to more examples of contributions by Hispanics.

When I first scanned this passage, I mis-read it to mean that the left-leaning board members wanted inclusion of these three Medal of Honor winners, but the notion of inclusion based solely on race was rejected by the Republicans. But no — after one of the Democrats stomped out, the board apparently compromised by approving the inclusion of three men, one each from a different race. (If that was the compromise, one can only imagine what the original demands were.) Let’s pause for a moment and look at this compromise.

Obsessing Over the Minutiae and Ignoring the Big Picture

Just who was Roy Benavidez? He won the Medal of Honor for an heroic action during a May 2, 1968 battle in the Vietnam War.

Now, I’m not going to put down or criticize Benavidez; what he did (rushing to help trapped comrades under fire) was extremely brave and selfless, and I salute him for his service to the country. He certainly deserved the Medal of Honor.

But…well, let’s be frank: In the grand scheme of things, the sweep of world history, just how significant was that skirmish and Benavidez’s role in it? Not very. Don’t forget that there were 245 other brave soldiers who also won the Medal of Honor during Vietnam — and 3,447 other Medal of Honor winners throughout American history. If you were to read the each one of their stories, they’d be equally valorous. So: Why Benavidez? He would seem at first glance to be some random heroic veteran pulled out of a hat and held up above all others — and not just above all other heroic veterans, but all other people in the history of the world — for praise and study. Why? The people who voted to include him in the book told us exactly why: Because of his ethnicity. That’s it.

And the same holds true for the other two nominees: Vernon J. Baker “is a United States Army Medal of Honor recipient for his actions on April 5–6, 1945 near Viareggio, Italy during World War II. Baker and his platoon killed 26 enemy soldiers and destroyed six machine gun nests, two observer posts and four dugouts.” Again, very excellent. I salute Vernon Baker. But again, why him out of the literally millions of heroic soldiers who risked life and limb and mowed down the enemy in WWII and other wars? Again, he was chosen due to his ethnicity, and no other reason. The other nominee, legendary WWI hero Alvin York (subject of the Gary Cooper film Sergeant York) was probably ignored by the multiculturalists until they discovered that his ancestors had some Native American blood way back somewhere in the family tree — thereby elevating York to the coveted minority status.

Crispus Attucks, the Original Founding Father

Another example of this trend happened in my own education — an experience I would later learn was commonplace for other kids of the same generation. As a schoolchild growing up in an urban and very ethnically mixed school district sometime in that transitional period between 1975 and 2000, we thousands of elementary schoolkids were presented with what at the time was a novel concept — history viewed through the lens of race. And so our brief section on the American Revolution pretty much focused entirely on Crispus Attucks, one of the five people killed at the 1770 Boston Massacre, which is generally cited as one of the sparks that eventually ignited the American War of Independence. Oh, and I left out a key detail: Attucks was partly African-American. That’s why we studied him. Now, it’s all well and good to learn about Crispus Attucks and the Boston Massacre, as long as it’s one component in a larger megadose of information about the Revolution. But here’s the crazy part of my education: We never learned the rest the story. We never were given the slightest whiff of the “standard narrative” which this counter-narrative was devised to neutralize. I never was taught thing one about George Washington or Benjamin Franklin; Thomas Jefferson was only mentioned briefly as an example of a slave-owner; I never even heard the names Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Paine or any of the innumerable other figures familiar to anyone who learned American history “in the old days.”

On pages 84-90 of his book History in the Making (which traces how textbooks have changed over time), author Kyle Ward shows how the fable of Crispus Attucks has evolved and grown for centuries, and by now bears little resemblance to the original version of his participation in the Boston Massacre. Future president John Adams, at that time defending the British soldiers from a murder charge, described Attucks and his fellow rioters as “a motley rabble of saucy boys, negros and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs.” Compare that to the version I was taught nearly two hundred years later, in which Attucks was the original American patriot, a noble-minded martyr who almost singlehandedly brought America to independence.

Keep in mind that my teachers, however progressive they may have been, had themselves all been educated in the distant past of the 20th century, when every schoolchild had the “normal” version of American history drilled into his or her head relentlessly. And so these teachers (and school district policy-setters, I’m sure as well) wanted to break out of that old-fashioned mold and teach something more relevant to the majority of us inner-city kids. But in the rush to correct what was perceived as a longstanding bias, the educators must have forgotten that in our little pre-teen brains was a complete absence of any knowledge of American history of any kind. So that when we were exclusively presented with what was simply meant as an antidote to the old ways, that antidote was all we ever got. Crispus Attucks was just one of innumerable semi-marginal figures elevated to central status in my early educational career. If you had asked me, when I was still young, who had founded the United States, I likely would have told you it was Crispus Attucks. And I fear that if the future kids of Texas were to be quizzed on who won the Vietnam War, they’d probably tell you it was Roy Benavidez.

Multiply this scenario a million-fold and you can begin to see the problem with the kind of ethnocentric historical re-prioritization that has become commonplace in American education. It’s not that Crispus Attucks and Vernon J. Baker and Roy Benavidez were bad people, or are unworthy of praise, but rather that they are figures of at best secondary importance being given leading roles in history. It’s a nonstop educational equivalent of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard’s bizarre re-working of Hamlet in which bit players become the lead characters while Hamlet himself is relegated to the sidelines.

The Moral Imperative to Rewrite History

But this brings us back to the original “problem,” as the progressive educators perceive it. If we hew to the Straight White Male version of history, then we still won’t have any alternate role models to help minority students visualize a way out of their cultural rut. We need to misrepresent history in the past if we want to forge the possibility of a new history in the future.

To me, this is the gist of the conflict. I’ve striven mightily for years to fairly assess both sides of the debate, yet no matter how hard I try to be even-handed, the progressive/revisionist argument always collapses.

First of all, it is deeply insulting and condescending to presume that minority kids can only rise to the level of some precursor with a similar skin tone. This is the kind of “soft racism” of which the Left is endlessly guilty, treating minorities as if they were parrots capable only of imitative behavior.

If anything, the very existence of President Obama himself has disproven this presumption: What ethnic role models did Barack Hussein Obama have in his ascent to the presidency? None. Love him or hate him, disagree with his policies as vehemently as you wish (quite vehemently in my case), you must concede that he broke new ground; he showed that black men are capable of anything, and that they don’t require ethnic role models or antecedents to take any career path, even the highest one in the land. And if that’s the case, we don’t need to rewrite history as part of an unnecessary and ultimately futile mass psychology experiment.

Furthermore, reality doesn’t change simply because you’ve tricked a bunch of kids into believing a lie. Do the leftists seriously think that with sufficient brainwashing most young women will in fact permanently lose all biologically built-in mothering instincts and instead all strive to be firefighters or astronauts? That the facts of history will somehow alter to our liking if we twist them hard enough? (The answer, incredibly enough, is yes — that’s exactly what they believe.)

How much hogwash must we impose on our children before we abandon this delusional “social justice” scheme?

Nikola Tesla, a white male and a Serbian-American, was the real pioneer of electricity in the US. Ever since Reagan left office and the US government decided to support Muslims against Christian Serbs in the Balkans, there has been an extreme reluctance to give credit where credit is due.

Ah, Nikola Tesla has been ignored in the US for the better part of a century, primarily because of his poor relations with Thomas Edison, who was able to manage the press far better than Tesla. (Never mind that whenever Tesla and Edison disagreed about something, Tesla was usually right.)

@Ellen – Off the top of my head, have you ever heard of Garrett Augustus Morgan? His contribution to early electrification may not be huge, but it sure has been lasting. What did he do? He invented the first electric traffic signal, among other things. Then there’s Lewis Latimer who helped to make the light bulb accessible to the public. And 3 seconds to type “Black inventor electricity” into Bing brings: Granville T. Woods (telegraphy, electric braking systems for street cars), Frederick McKinley Jones (electrical refrigeration systems), George T. Samon (the electric clothes drier)and at least six pages of results. Not to put too fine a point on it, but racial politics is what it is today because of a long history of people who assume that minorities have made little or no contribution to this society and then set out to prove it by “failing to find” contributions. Not to be unkind, but the lack of diligence you showed in your previous position could be used to explain exactly why the CA school board makes whacky “inclusion” requirements in their texts.

…though the entire notion of having to search for “black electricity inventor” or any other such combination is precisely the problem. One should simply search for “electricity inventor” and see what one comes up with. Google searches, presumably, aren’t discriminatory based on race. Using a naive approach to illustrate a point, would it be politically incorrect to simply parse the top 100 hits and contrive a list of inventors based on such search results? I mean, it’s obviously naive as research, but apply the principle to sound research. MUST one include “black” in the calculus? If minorities really did contribute (not in question), then those substantial contributions will show up in research and, lo and behold, the contributors will “happen to be” minorities in many cases (instead of being targeted AS minorities during research).

The problem is this: the most minor minorities present a limit case of untenable scrutiny. By that I mean this: How many LGBT Eskimo Amish contributed to process control engineering during the industrial revolution? Ridiculous? OK, then how about LGBT Eskimos? Not as ridiculous. In fact, under a rubric of political correctness, not admitting of an LGBT cohort among Inuit would doubtless be a sign of homophobia. But what if, during my research into minority representation among inventors, I had not thought to include LGBT Inuit? The point would be that without an exhaustive enumeration of possible minorities, my research would always and ever, under a politically correct rubric, be most unjust to precisely the least empowered (evident) minorities.

So it does no good to point out that adding the word “Black” — the most politicized and obvious minority in the U.S. — to a Google search yields results. Genuine research concerning all minority contributions turns out to be a fool’s errand. The only tenable research is research in to the question itself — “who actually did make contributions?” — and if they turn out to be minorities or white or whatever, then “it is what it is” — a banal phrase which, miraculously, captures Dr. King’s dream better than his would-be heirs’ grievance-mongering insistence that all eyes must see and stare at color from the get-go.

rasqual, Your comment should be required reading. An excellent explanation of why embracing political correctness shoots itself in the foot. A good teacher can make the achievements, bravery, wisdom, or sacrifice of an individual (regardless of their ethno-gender-cultural pigeonhole), worthy of awe, respect, and emulation.

If you teach the truth, children will learn the lessons. To ignore the actual heroes or innovators in order to cater to this feel-good nonsense reinforces the fragmentation of our society. Even pointing out that a historic achiever has a particular skin shade should be beneath discussion. However, Country of Origin and Cultural Background fill in important parts the story behind the person and in most cases (take my word for this) the kids can figure out from the pictures the particulars of skin color.

Through a rich Social Studies Program that includes notable accomplishments of folks grouped by ethnicity or whatever, all the children will learn that every color and culture has contributed to our world in some significant way.

But history is like science. We have to teach the best that we know about each subject, no matter how the dice land.

“Black electricity inventor.” So remarkable, this Black electricity. Surely a very special type unknown to Benjamin Franklin and Galvani, Volta, Faraday, yes, Tesla and all the others. This racial categorization of inventors is quite demeaning to Black people, if we reflect on what it really means. All that peanut butter, and elevators and city streets in Washington D.C. but call to mind Johnson’s dog, walking on its hind legs.

Garret Morgan invented a hand cranked traffic semaphore ( it didnt use electricity )
Lewis Lattimer invented a manufacturing method for the carbon filaments used in the incandescent light . His invention was a manufacturing method, not the electric light .

Lattimer was a great inventor and accomplished a great deal but neither he nor Morgan had much to do with the discovery or development of electricity and magnetism.

Electricty and magnetism seem to have indeed been discovered and developed primarily by white males. I dont know how we as a country can ever atone for such shameful behavior .

Thanks for the re-education on Garrett Morgan (see what you get from a public education?). I have seen Morgan signals that were electric (in operation in my lifetime), but that was apparently something added after GE bought the patent. My mistake. I would argue that making light bulbs commercially accessible is worth discussion in a frickin’ electricity museum. I’d remind you that the threshold for what passes as a museum exhibit these days is pretty stinking low. I’m not saying this country has to atone for anything and would gladly argue the opposite. I’m also not going to cry a river because poor Ellen was asked to do some BS task that she wasn’t up to completing (given the very lax standards of modern museology). I am saying that Ellen’s attitude is an example of what leads extreme liberals use to bring out the PC cudgel. Seriously, what good purpose does it do to imply that no non-whites have ever contributed anything of note in a field as broad as “electricity?” All it does is give the left the opportunity to scream, “raaaaaaaacist!”

I am sorry, but as a Conservative Californian, I cannot agree more that this CRAP has gotten out of hand. And this just helps showcase it.

The case in this essay that REALLY hits home is one example on the list of “American Heroes.”

Namely, Queen Liluokalanai, who I fail to see could possibly really be defined as an American Hero. For the uninitiated: she was the very last monarch of an independent Hawaii who fought a long and sometimes bloody struggle against encrouching American power. While many of her actions were most assuredly heroic (her many flaws- like her rather severe if informal rascism- were not really that greater than those of, say, supposed paragon of Civic duty Cinncinnatus who ruthlessly crushed the rights of the Plebs), but I fail to see how she can be called American save for her living her for the last two decades or so of her life. She CERTAINLY did not see herself as American, and indeed had some tentative contacts with our enemies Spain (in 1898) and Germany (in WWI) for aid.

This just makes it seem like they threw her in there because they wanted an “American Heroine” from the Hawaiian Islands, and I believe she would be offended by said move.

The liberal NOTIONS of destroying the status quo is required to create a socialistic perfect society (fantasy), ran amuck a long time ago. When are they going to stop trying to create an artificial unrealistic society? Building a house or anything on those liberal progressive notions, is like building your house on top of jello!! It has never worked on this planet! Their egregious revisionism of U.S. History is eroding the strengths of our country still. BUT……….Some of them are actually waking up and joining the TEA PARTY!
Responsible government paying attention to the wisdom in our US Constitution!

Having worked in the development of K-12 textbooks for 25 years, I have to agree with all you say. I have many more horror stories than you have space to print.

The importance of your posts here can’t be minimized. The educational publishing industry determines the curricula of virtually every public school in this country.

What happens in Texas and California (because of the adoption system) happens everywhere else in the country. And let me assure you, there is a much more profound anti-american liberal bias on every level in every subject matter than there is a conservative bias anywhere.

I hope you keep writing about this and turn it into a book.

As a side note: The news is filled with Bed-bug stories. I remember when we started adding Rachel Carson to all the science textbooks to fulfill the gender quota. The fact that outlawing DDT resulted in exploding epidemics of malaria and dengue fever in the tropics was unknown to the good liberal writers of the books who just knew that dead birds were a bad thing.

Now there are bedbugs everywhere and all of the pesticides that would work have been outlawed by the environmentalist’s'S EPA.
Thank you Rachel Carson. And thanks to ed publishing for turning her into a saint.

Gina- You cannot put the end of DDT on the shoulders of Rachael Carlson. She may have helped to spread the word but c’mon. Gender quota? No….try again. One of the events that ended the use of DDT was the fact that the American Bald Eagle (you know-the one that stands as a sybmol for America) was going extinct because of DDT.

That’s got nothing to do with gender equity.

Oh, and I’ll take the bedbugs over birth defects each and every day. I’m sure most sane Americans would as well.

There are still areas of the world where DDT might make a sort of twisted sense, areas where maleria kills people en masse but it is, and always has been, a very dangerous chemical compound with no justification for its use here in the States.

@ Nathan. Too bad DDT isn’t a “very dangerous chemical compound”. It’s classified as “moderately hazardous” by the World Health Organization. It is also one of 12 insecticides APPROVED by the WHO for indoor residual spraying to combat Malaria. It’s also the longest lasting and the among the most cost effective.

It’s all well and fine for us Americans to speculate about what African’s should use to combat Malaria. But since 90% of malaria deaths occur among young children in Sub Sarahan Africa, I think we should let African’s decide if they want to risk the health effects of DDT, or risk losing their children to Malaria. Ban on DDT has undoubtedly untold millions of children, and was brought about by the will of Nations in North America and Europe where malaria is virtually nonexistent. I think it’s time we come clean and be honest about the risks and the benefits of DDT and let Africans decide. It’s not some sort of “twisted sense” that would lead a person in sub-Sarahan Africa to use DDT — I think it’s a very rational and pragmatic thing to do.

Incidentally, indoor residual spraying doesn’t kill any birds. That came from using it on crops.

Generally speaking, today’s Liberals are vastly more racist and sexist than those whom they oppose.

They do not simply believe this delusional, destructive baloney, but they fiercely insist that all companies, schools, and federal, state and local governments, rigorously discriminate against white males. They insist that laws and official policies be written to force this racist and sexist attitude, even if the employees, students or citizens oppose it.

Flat-out lying about American history in order to minimize the contributions of white males in ALL fields of endeavor, is merely one of their tools in forcing racism and sexism onto all Americans. As usual with Liberals, it is never enough that they have a certain opinion. Everybody else must be forced to have that same opinion, or failing that, be destroyed.

It also is a great disservice to non-whites. What is this multicultural grab bag of “heroes and average people” really teaching them? That they are at best to be considered tokens? That nothing makes them noteworthy other than the color of their skin (or in the case of women, their genitalia)? That they cannot be celebrated for what they do well now (or in the case of women, what they were biologically ordained to do)?

And what purpose does this serve, but to compartmentalize people, to place them in very limited stereotypes much more assuredly than any non-PC classroom ever could? I knew when I was a very little girl that I was not George Washington or Mark Twain, because I was not a man, nor even of the same ethnic heritage…but it did not stop me from being inspired. I wasn’t tallying up how many female, mixed heritage, working class women were placed in my text books, and neither should adults. I think it really tells how little they think of children’s inherent intelligence (which is not high — the statists have very little regard for children, or women, or those not of the “elite” — which would include many who are non-white). It tells how disdainfully they regard the indivual, and how much they would desire to destroy that.

It comes down to control…and ultimately destruction…the statists want to control every aspect of human life (even the procreative urge) and in so doing they also wish to destroy it, because it is imperfect (although I notice they never factor themselves into this equation).

Haven’t you heard? Gender differences are social constructs. There is nothing biological or anatomical about them. We men and women have been decreed to be the same. It is society that determines if we are male or female. I’m so glad the feminists and the gays, lesbians, et al., discovered this truth and are now cramming it down our collective throats. Aren’t you?

But it is not the truth, and biological science proves that.
Now, to be sure, I think small children shouldn’t be hounded and made to feel ashamed about what they can and cannot play because it falls outside of preconceived ideas from either side — let them have their innocence and immagination for at least a little while. But that has more to do with anxious adults who want children to be little replicas of themselves.

You are certainly right saying that those who “measure” children’s intelligence think kids are dumb. Not stupid, exactly. After all, another part of the p.c. thing is based on the cliche, “Ignorance is correctable; stupidity is not.” Hence the indoctrination into the left’s fav. ideology. Know how NOT stupid kids are? While recently having a discussion about parenting, schools and society, my 2 sons (now 27 and 22) told me how idiotic they thought the “everybody wins” stuff was when they had it forced upon them. Even as little ones they knew getting a trophy for showing up meant nothing. They KNEW they didn’t win — but being rewarded for nothing reinforces the idea that there’s nothing to shoot for! If there aren’t any losers, there can’t be any winners either. So much for good ol’ American know-how and tech advances …

It is ironic in the extreme that the left demands fidelity to a Darwinist theory of evolution, yet attempts to enact policies antagonistic to evolution, i.e., all outcomes will be the same, without realizing that evolution itself makes that outcome impossible.

That’s because they don’t really care about evolutionary theory as a SCIENTIFIC theory — it’s only importance to them is how they can use it as a political/sociological tool to tear down existing societal structures, how they can use it as a means to their ends. The scientific value is of next to no value; I find that they really could care less about searching for scientific truth, or philosophical truth, or beauty, or art — they could give a d$%^ about nature/environment, nor humane treatment of animals, nor justice for the downtrodden, nor equality either. Those are all just snares they use to trap people into supporting their cause.

The only thing that really matters is power to them — the power to try and enforce their vision of what is “right” on the world. The rest is nothing (and by nothing I mean “expendable”)

Funny thing about Pocahontas. The whole thing was likely staged as a method to humiliate Smith. It was not uncommon for a young girl to “save” an man (warrior usually) because the shame of being saved by some little girl was considered incredibly demeaning. Smith didn’t get it. Of course there is a whole bunch of other stuff about America- whatever tribe or nation relations they don’t teach in high school, never mind middle school. For example (and pertinent to other discussions) Geronimo and other Apache, who actually did live in the South West unlike the Aztecs, hated the Mexicans because of the atrocities they committed. Not that any love was lost with the white soldiers, that little bit isn’t discussed. Geronimo’s autobiography is pretty good too.

Heroes don’t have to have a national scope. They needn’t have strode across continents. There is no reason to warp or distort history to find positive role models. Something else is going on here. Multicultural, postmodernist deconstruction. Oh right! They’re Marxists.

Every society in recorded time has had three classes of people: the High, the Middle, and the Low.” (George Orwell, “1984″).

In “1984″, the “low” were the proles, the “middle” were the Outer Party, and the “high” were the Inner Party.

The ultimate goal of the PC revolution is not equality (because there can be no true equality except in a nation of clones), but the New Class setting itself up as the new High, with its clients and mascots as the Middle.

I have my own dream: a chain of MacSchools (private) charging $3,000 per student per year, teaching real history, English, math, economics without ANY of the PC or closed-shop nonsense. I think good teachers would flock to such an opportunity. We might even be able to start some non-sectarian church to make the tuition tax-deductible. Would the teachers’ unions have a holy fit? Is the Pope Catholic?

Good teachers flock to a good school because they can do what they love without PC madness. My daughters go to a small private school, and while a little more money would relieve some stress on teachers (and put more on parents thanks to the education monopoly) money is *not* what motivates them. I want them to get more, but it doesn’t attract *good* teachers.

I wish to protest the fact that not one long-haired hippie is on the heroes list.

We form a distinct sub-culture and ought to be considered a legitimate oppressed minority; and not including at least one of us on the list is a calculated insult.

I’d like to nominate myself for the role, seeing as how I’m so unique, being one of the few right wing hippies on earth. Not only am I discriminated against by mainstream society, but also by my outraged fellow hippies. Despite this, I soldier bravely on, day after day, year after year, waving my freak flag high!

If Zitkala-Sa is on the list of American heroes, I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t be too, especially if there is a cash award that goes along with the honor.

Ugh – well, give me credit for knowing who Juan Seguin was – undeniably heroic, unquestionably brave and one who probably deserved a little better at the hands of the country that he fought for. (http://open.salon.com/blog/sgt_mom/2008/11/30/relatively_unsung_heroes)
But the 19th century, and a lot of the events given the once-over-lightly in the history textbooks are a heck of a lot more complicated than they would be painted. Stuff happened. Wish that public school history textbooks could be a lot more comprehensive, and a lot more nuanced in how they present history and the people who sometimes unwittingly find themselves taking a large or a small part in it.
(Juan Seguin is a minor character in my next book, BTW.)

Thanks, Dave! (although I think Juan Seguin in the 2004 version of the Alamo was probably a bit closer to the historical person)
I sometimes wonder if the history textbooks are being deliberately pointless, dull and dumbed-down, in order to prevent kids from developing an interest in history at all. When you go back to original sources, and real people – obscure or well-known, it all is much more complicated, dramatic and interesting. That’s why I think so many people are fascinated by re-enacting; it makes the history that has been so PC-d by academics and textbooks into something interesting and dramatic again.

“I sometimes wonder if the history textbooks are being deliberately pointless, dull and dumbed-down, in order to prevent kids from developing an interest in history at all.”

That is an observation that I expect nearly every student has had at some point or another. My brother was, I think, a pretty typical student in high school 35 years ago. He did little homework and got mediocre marks in the middle-to-low range for most subjects. He really didn’t care that much; he knew that university was not for him and started working full time right out of high school. Near the end of our high school careers – I’m a couple of years older – PBS aired a series called Connections that soon became a “must see” for both of us. Somewhere along the line, my brother lamented: “if only school were half this interesting!” I agreed with him completely. Connections was basically about the history of discoveries and inventions and looked at many important examples of both. Unlike school, Connections was FASCINATING – and still is! (I have the programs on DVD – two more editions of Connections were made in later years – and they are all excellent.) The host presented information about the people who made the inventions and discoveries that made them human beings and that put them in the context of their times. Instead of a dry recitation of facts, we met PEOPLE and learned a little bit about the times they lived in and even the politics of their time and place. That was WAY more interesting than just learning that John Doe invented the whatchamacallit in 1745….

George McDonald Fraser’s Flashman series was another revelation. Flashman was the central character in a series of books that had more interesting history per page than anything else I’ve ever seen. Fraser based his series on a fictional character (borrowed from another writer) and weaved a series of adventures around him. But those adventures were NOT imaginary: they were the true stories behind many of the pivotal events of the 19th century. Fraser had his Flashman character in the midst of John Brown’s attack on Harper’s Ferry, fighting at Custer’s Last Stand, doing battle with Otto Von Bismarck, fending off pirates in Borneo, leading the Charge of the Light Brigade and many other adventures. Fraser even provided footnotes, just like a real history book.

I just give these two examples to show that there ARE ways to make history more interesting than the textbooks we normally see.

The textbook thing has been coming for a long time. As Bob Dylan sang so long ago, “there’s a slow train coming down the track”. It is now here and what is now a bad education will only get worse. I guess my question is why Geronimo didn’t make the list? He was a true example of homeland security.

I was born in Hawaii, so I was taught the story of Liliuokalani at an early age. It’s actually a very interesting tale, and bears directly on the final territorial expansion of the USA and the consolidation of our Pacific sphere of influence, including the conflict with Japan that sparked our involvement in WWII. So in that sense she is a much more important figure than, say, Maya Lin. But she would not make my top ten list of Americans.

BTW the latest version of the textbook “Creating America” can be previewed on Amazon. It appears that half the list has changed. Still making the cut are

The simplistic diversity of skin color and genitalia is offensive. Still, one hopes that in a text intended for middle schoolers some variety in focus could be achieved. I don’t think it would serve children well if the list comprised, say, some historian’s idea of the Ten Best Presidents. Here’s my list:

Okay, I felt guilty that were no women on the list. So I went looking deliberately for a female American whose accomplishments were worthy of inclusion on my list. I’m not being flip, but I went through several on-line lists of “Important American Women” and there are hardly any characters who are of the stature of the other folks on the list. I mean, yeah, Susan B. Anthony, sure, Hillary Clinton, and um, Margaret Sanger… Sacagawea? But Anthony and Sanger don’t hold a candle, as activists, to MLK. And Hillary was a mediocre Senator and is an invisible SecState whose legacy would be entirely nugatory if not for her gender. But I think Ayn Rand stands on her own. And if I think of “American political philosopher” she makes the short list, maybe not ahead of Thomas Jefferson — but he should really be on the “President” short list….

How about: Artist — Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses
Of course not a “hero” — but she is an interesting example of an American artist, her work was very popular, and she didn’t start painting until she was in her 70′s. I would definitely put her in an American history textbook — but not as a “hero”.

Maybe it’s because I’m Australian, not American – but I’d put Eleanor Roosevelt in there. If there were more tough-minded, resolute people like her out there, the UN would actually be worth something, and conform to its ideals.

1. Since Einstein did most of his important work in Europe, I suggest replacing him with someone like Linus Pauling or Richard Feynman.

2. I don’t “get” jazz but, via my respect for some people who do, I believe it is a legitimate, serious musical genre. So how about:

Musician: John Coltrane (or Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong)

I’d consider Leonard Bernstein if not for the sense that he frittered away his enormous talents.

3. Didn’t Arrow produce the kind of overly rational, overly mathematical economics that served Wall Street as a pretext for their excessive leverage? I’m not sure an economist belongs on a list of great Americans, given that profession’s track record. Friedman, if anyone.

Absolutely nothing. Just as discreetly breast-feeding a child should be perfectly acceptable in public (they are life-giving BREASTS not ‘fun-bags’). Hell, how many times to we have to see men and their bitch tits? THEY have ‘breasts’ too. Men have nipples and even milk ducts (yes, it’s rare but men can produce milk)!

Instead of turning women into ‘men’, women should be uplifting women’s roles as mothers, teachers and wives and not denigrating those things. Women have liberation now. It’s ridiculous to try and rewrite history in order to make young girls feel ashamed of their natural nurturing instincts as females (even from a young age taking care of their dollies).

Azathoth, so men who can lactate have ‘fun bags’ by your narrow minded definition?

Men with d-cups are hawt, right?

Yowza!

As much as I love a good mentally masturbatory metaphor, you are ostensibly espousing that life-giving breasts are sex objects unto YOU and should not be ‘viewed’ in public just so long as they belong to females? Really?

What an unbelieveable load of rubbish. How can anyone, except the crooks and ancient kings, write history to “conform” to their comfort level?
History is good and bad, beautiful and ugly….that’s the way it is.
It is not only bad education but twisted information. When the children are older and find out the facts, they will be bitter to the system of deception.
Or do they intend to burn the books relating actual facts, so no one can find out? Are none of these people capable of looking ahead to see the folly of this error?
What a tangled web we weave……..

As they used to say in the USSR: “For us the future is known, it is the past that is always changing”.
Remember the Communists used to change “history” as present political situations demanded it to further the Commie agenda.

Reading this article, I feel all is lost. The 20-something are already brainwashed in “social justice” and other PC crap. The next generation currently under public “education” will be even more demoniacally brainwashed. America is finished.

‘What? “Over”? Did you say “over”? Nothing’s over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans
bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no! And it ain’t over now. ‘Cause when the going gets tough…the tough get going!’

The only rational solution to the problem is to entirely eliminate the public educational systems across the entire country. They’re immoral and impractical and have been from their beginning.

When they are once again private companies they can teach anything they like and parents will have a choice, one that does not violate their rights by – among other things – stealing their money via property taxes, indoctrinating their children in Hegelian state worship and Progressive ideas, and will instead offer an immeasurable value that few schools today even attempt: actual training of young minds in the ability to reason objectively.

I’ve seen assignments in teacher education classes where the students have to do a textbook analysis. Do they look at the book and see if it covers the subject and is accurate? Of course not. They have to check if it is inclusive, multiculural and has the correct ratio of illustrations. That is the only thing that is important to the education solons.

What’s really troubling is that the writers of these textbooks are incapable of entertaining the thought that a black boy might admire and emulate, say, a white fireman for his courage or his selflessness, or vice versa. No – the only role model a black child can imitate is a black role model.

In judging the status of race relations in the USA, the prevalence this belief – that interactions between individuals will be primarily determined by their races – far outweighs the election of a black man to the presidency.

The rules about gender and minority presentation are certainly overdone, but I don’t see what the big deal is beyond that. Teaching history (or selecting what to teach) is by its very nature, an enterprise which is guaranteed to tick off almost anyone who cares about history. I taught English, where could could focus on skills more than half the time; grammar, vocabulary, composition. There can be minor controversies about young adult reading choices, whether or not to “teach” the Bible, and how many of the authors and protagonists are female or minority, but it tends to be manageable. If my students came out as stronger readers and writers, that was more important than whatever books we chose for them to read.
But with history, there is so damned much of it, and it is information, not a skill to teach, that you are always ignoring hundreds or thousands of things, for which many could make the case that they “should be taught.” In fact, you could history all day, every day for a students first twelve years of schooling and still
not get to “important” things. In Massachusetts, we got the math and English standards settled in a year or two and have been high stakes testing them with MCAS for more than ten years. We STILL have not been able to get consensus on history standards.
I am just an amateur, late-to-the-field local historian, but even I can see that first you have to decide, how much world history, as opposed to US. Then how much time (if any) for Neanderthals, Cro-magnon, Sumerians, Babylonians, the Chinese Dynasties, Persians, Greeks, Romans and so on. In US History, how much on early explorers and explorations, native cultures, Pilgrims, Puritans, Jamestown, Indian Wars, French and Indian War, run-up to the Revolution, the “Founders” and their roots in the various states and cultures, slavery’s early roots, blow-by=blow accounts of the events leading up to the Brit occupation of Boston, the Suffolk Resolves and all similar documents from the various colonies, Loyalists-Tories etc. Then the Continental Congresses and the writing of the Declaration of Independence, endless ups and owns of the war, which dragged on forever. Which battles do you highlight? I am learning all sorts of things about this period, triggered by journal kept by a local Rev War soldier. HE was not very important, probably not even a very good soldier, but he has triggered my interest? Should his journal be read by local students to understand his attitudes towards religion, money, patriotism etc?
Every damned one of these decisions to include or exclude has a potential political component as well. The making and meaning of the Constitution would be Exhibit A.

Zombie you write “I’m speaking of social Marxism, or postmodern Marxism. The difference between 19th century classical Marxism and 21st century neo-Marixsm is a vast topic [... a few dozen more words in that same paid by word mode ...] ”

Not really. Marx himself called for “despotism”. He was preceded in the idea space by the “Levellers” (and their precedent casting of what became our Bill of Rights), and the Diggers.

Anarchists like Rosa, the pirates like LaFitte predated Marx although both Luxembourg and Jean were fans of Marx.

Marxism, really, is not economics. It is at core constant aggressive despotic social leveling. Marx was tired, as too many of his generation, of the long cycle of human development. The Chinese sages say an Empire lasts 350 years or so. It becomes overbearing, corrupt, and hard poverty and rebels arise into a few transformational years of chaos and mass deaths, whereupon a new Emperor establishes under a banner and ethos of justice and equity. And that new Empire goes through the same cycle as the last.

Let local districts decide what textbooks they use and also all curriculum, all grading and graduation standards. DISTRICT BY DISTRICT. The more districts the BETTER!

Anthony Codevilla lamented the roll-up of local school districts into mega-districts in his Ruling Class essay recently. He’s righter even than the reasons he gave.

Distributed intelligence works. We live in an age of the global village. Communication became all persons and all levels is constant and great. No district is going to get way off any good marking when left to it’s own devices. And with tens of thousands of solution makers, our education will get back on track quickly.

But if we do that, the wrong people will get their way, and first some balance will be had, and eventually Darwinism will be tossed on the ashheap of history along with other failed ideologies like Communism and Naziism. And Zombie will be annoyed as science roars ahead after shaking free some illogical shackles.

I can’t help but want to give you a ‘girl perspective’ from the mid 1960s, when I was reading those ‘readers’ in school (and reading real books written for children that we got from the public library, outside of school). I loved school, loved reading, learned to read despite the ludicrous ‘look-say’ method employed then (don’t get me started on that –!).

I remember a genre of story that I was fond of, in which it was shown, in what seemed (to me, at least) a believable way, that a girl was ‘as good as’ some boy in some endeavor, but then, for various reasons, she removed herself from direct competition. The best one of these that I remember involved boy and girl twins, both of whom (of course!) were fantastic baseball players. Comes the day of the big, championship game, the boy twin is sick (or something) and can’t show up. Consternation; the team will lose without him, for sure. But Sis–who can’t play on the team, because it’s a league that (obviously) doesn’t allow girls–dresses herself up as her brother (they’re twins, remember?) and comes running up late, but better late than never. Of course, she saves the day, and it’s only when sliding into home plate, which necessitates that her cap should fall off and her hair come spilling out, is it clear who she is. I don’t really remember if (as I expect, and logic seems to dictate) that fact–that it was a girl who got the big hit and then scored–invalidated the team’s win. There was a triumphant “She did it!” feeling at the end, even if, in some sense, it didn’t ‘really’ count.

That must have been 3rd grade in 1966 in an elementary school (Strawberry Point) in Mill Valley, CA, where my family lived for a short time.

Anyway–contrived as that plot was, it seemed to me, a non-athlete, exciting and believable, and still (now, looking retrospectively) somehow true to its time. If the rules kept out girls, there was no way, however poignant the situation, for a girl to participate (legally) in that game. Notice that the story wasn’t about breaking down doors for women (or even girls); but it did show that, ‘as we all know,’ a given girl might be able to do something valued and prized, beyond what was expected. That was a kind of comfort, bittersweet for sure. I think maybe it spoke to what one might know, deep down, about oneself.

Contrast that with the way stories began to be written in the 1970s, under the first go-round of the PC publishing that Zombie is talking about. All of a sudden, there is a girl (or sometimes lots of them) who is so much better than any boy–even at football or something unlikely. I was too old for these, but since my mother was a children’s librarian and was constantly bringing home books to read and review, I continued to see them. How stilted the dialogue became! How forced the situations! This was also the heyday of the ‘let’s drag in a problem kids should know about and make a book about it’ style of hectoring more than writing, too.

I remember reading something, as a young adult (in the late 70s or early 80s), that made me feel guilty for the pleasure I had had in many of the reader stories I could remember from elementary school: I was reading an article that asked one to imagine how shut out from normal, day-to-day life a child from the inner city, say, would feel, if presented with the Dick-and-Jane type reader. Are only families with fair-skinned people, a mom, dad and 2 kids, plus a dog, in detached houses with grass all around ‘normal’? So, why should that be the only reality that’s shown?

It’s a good question!

But, why did the answer seem to be that UNREALITY (no women taking care of kids, etc., as Zombie relates) was better?

A companion piece to this article by Zombie is the book by Diane Ravitch (The Language Police), about textbook and high-stakes-test publishing, from which we learn that it’s considered ‘unfair’ to give reading material about anything with which a child might be unfamiliar–the sea, the mountains, the desert, earlier times, etc.–on a test of reading comprehension. Wow! Couldn’t we hope that children might be able to learn something, from a piece that’s written for them? I can also remember once (in elementary school)reading something about the lifecycle of shrimp (of all things) in a standardized testing situation; I didn’t even eat shrimp in those days, but for some reason, I found it a really interesting passage! It was probably written rather well. Why not populate children’s readers and textbooks with interesting things NOT from their daily lives, that it might be cool to know about?

And, much as little-girl me liked to read about girls who didn’t do anything (like cry, or run away, or otherwise mess up) to make me feel ashamed, I know that I also was plenty happy to read about boys. Sometimes the boys messed up! But mostly, writing about boys offered a huge variety of characters, not just one set type; I don’t think I had any problem finding some character to identify with in some way, even in all-male stories. If there weren’t girls in the story, I think I read, in fact, with somewhat less anxiety. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that members of identifiable ethnic or racial minorities have had something of the same experience–it’s so high-stakes for you, when the character you’re clearly intended to identify with comes along; it’s hard to have them written about realistically, they somehow always get turned into some kind of non-realistic hero. That can be hard to live up to; if the girls in the stories are all unbelievable problem-solvers and impressive in some way, what’s wrong with you?

Some of the most appealing books (real ones) that I remember were written about people who lived in other times, or other places, or both. I didn’t particularly prize stories that replicated my own daily life.

Parents shouldn’t wait for textbooks to get fixed; seek out the best kind of children’s books–ones you actually liked as a kid; or, in case of doubt, make sure they were published around 1960 at the latest, since stylistic dumbing-down (in addition to the tampering with subject matter) started in the 1960s–and read them with your kids. There’s nothing wrong with reading to your kids long after they know how to read themselves, particularly if (as seems likely) you can read it ‘better’ (i.e., with accurate pronunciation, more convincing acting skills). Plus, they’ll see how much you really value it, if you spend your time on it with them. Don’t be deluded into thinking your kids are reading ‘just fine,’ if what they’re mostly reading is just-published-yesterday stuff. That’s only too likely to be written in breezy, snappy (therefore easy) dialogue form. The long narrative passages, thoughtful introspective ones, anything explanatory from the author–that’s the kind of writing in which you get a chance of some challenging and interesting vocabulary.

Suzanne, excellent comment! I was a fifth-grade teacher all during the 70s and half of the 80s. Every year, I read aloud Jack London’s fantastic books “White Fang” and “The Call of the Wild,” as well as Eric Knight’s fabulous “Lassie Come Home,” in addition to others, such as “Where the Red Fern Grows.” I doubt if grade five kids today would even be able to follow the beautiful language and wonderfully constructed sentences and paragraphs in any of these books. How sad–for them and for us. Our school curricula has been so terribly dumbed down and that fits in with the progressive mindset. A stupid electorate ensures that they get elected and an under-educated populace is more easily managed. God help us! We are so far off the track and so lost that I think He’s the only one who can help us.

I am so sick and tired of the constant social engineering engaged in by progressives. Their ideas are nutty and damaging to people and the country. They are the embodiment of character disorders and personality flaws. As for California, I say give it to Mexico (the majority of the population is Mexican anyway). It is a breeding ground for fruitcakes and nut jobs. America would be better off without California.

History is very much a matter of individual tendencies, especially at the level addressed by the schools. My contemporaries and I didn’t really learn about Washington, Edison, and the other DWM pushed by the textbooks, because the whole thing was considered boring and oppressive. History, all the way into the first years of college, was a matter of impressing one-liner factoids into short term memory, regurgitating them onto the pages of Blue Books, and clearing the cache for the next class. A good history teacher was one who could provide enough mental tags associated with the factoids to make that process easier. Those few who found the subject interesting noticed immediately that what was presented in the class was at best a minimalist summary, and went on to dig out more by themselves.

I can reliably predict that this process is continuing and will continue, especially since the teachers involved are themselves products of the educational establishment — which is to say, dimbulbs who cannot bring themselves to be enthusiastic about the ideologically-approved drivel they spout, being far more interested in the perquisites, privileges, and pay packets they and their unions can extort from the general populace, and are profoundly ignorant on that and any other subject.

What the students will actually learn from such “educators” is that, e.g. Queen Lil-I-won’t-try-to-spell-it is boring, as are the rest of the pantheon being presented as the targets of worship. Past history teachers managed to accomplish that with Washington, Jefferson, et. al., not to mention Newton, Watt, and Edison, which is what opened the crack that the modern drivel was shoved into in the first place; Sixties “student protests” were often characterized by calls for “relevance”.

Students who are intrigued will, as before, go on to dig out at least part of the rest of the story. The rest will retain some residue of the cultural indoctrination embodied in the harangues, of course, and some way of addressing that is needed, but the grand project must ultimately fail for the same reasons it was possible to initiate it in the first place.

I am a Texas high school social studies teacher, and long-time follower of Zombie.

If it makes anyone feel better, at my school the Social Studies department runs strongly conservative and/or libertarian, and the textbooks are mostly used for maps, charts, and vocabulary, and not to set the narrative.

A candle in a hurricane, to be sure, but we do our part in the Long War. ;D

As a student in Victorville, California, I experienced first-hand the “scientific” experiments of educators AND the awful results, one immediately after the other.

1971: 4th grade. Two women “team teachers” allowed their students to choose which subjects to study and when, apparently on the theory that we would learn at our own pace. I learned almost nothing (and assume the same result for most of my classmates).

1972: 5th grade. I had a former Marine (I remember the term “drill instructor”) for a teacher. As you can imagine, 5th grade was hell.

Luckily, my parents owned a complete set of Western Civilization classics: Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Eurypides, etc. I read them in later years, and it seems to have made up for my poor California education.

Today, as the father of two young girls, the concept of allowing 4th graders to structure their own learning is ridiculous on its face.

Thanks for bringing me up to speed, Zombie. The situation isn’t getting better, and the Liberals are not going to give up. They’ll have to be defeated over and over again.

“But if the stereotypes are at least partly true, and are not negative stereotypes, then what is the harm in having at least a few pictures in a textbook which depict reality accurately, to at least balance out all the other wishful-thinking pictures? After all, if you walk through the real American landscape, everywhere you go you’ll see with your own eyes mothers taking care of children; if you turn on the TV or look at a magazine or see a billboard or actually attend a sporting event, you will see African-Americans engaging in sports; and if you go to any major university, you’ll see Asians using computers.”

The leftists would argue that reality *is* the balance for the textbooks – that the textbooks don’t need to contain that balance themselves.

What they seem to forget is that the less resemblance their textbooks bear to the reality they know to be true, the more students will be tempted to discount the value of education because it is disconnected from “real life;” therefore, “school stuff” is irrelevant.

You state “But in the rush to correct what was perceived as a longstanding bias, the educators must have forgotten that in our little pre-teen brains was a complete absence of any knowledge of American history of any kind.”

Forgotten? No, I think the absence of knowledge is seen as an –opportunity-. History is, after all, simply our human-created record of past events. Those records are now being re-written. History is being changed to suit the needs of those who see themselves as shaping the future. It’s not a matter of “restoring” a balance, it’s a matter of creating a –new- balance at the cost of the old.

As Orwell stated, “He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future.”

In the 1970s (I graduated from high school in 1975), they kept saying (‘they’ = teachers, textbooks), “Time to revise what we all learned,” e.g., about George Washington, the Civil War, how great our country was, etc.

In other words, they wanted to correct what we had (supposedly) learned in elementary school.

(Since adolescents love any chance at debunking, it almost seems otiose, for teachers to get in on the act.)

By now, of course, the kids haven’t learned any of the traditional tales about US history in elementary school (at the private school where I’ve taught for many years, they seem to know something about Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks, but few other figures in American history at all, even Lincoln, for God’s sake!). The debunking takes place in a vacuum.

There was a generation in which the teachers had been taught more or less properly; but they went in for revisionism in a big way, and kind of spoiled the teaching thereafter. Transmission of knowledge was broken. Knowledge of academic subjects has been / is being lost.

I would add that, in the 1970s, even the teachers with an ideological bent seemed to think that ‘opposing views’ had to be introduced and met, to the best of their ability. Pure indoctrination was not the norm, as it is today.

When a nation (or in this case a backwards state) becomes afraid of it’s own history it will fail. California sits on that threshold and should be a model of what NOT to do to your state to all other states. We are watching a train wreck in slow motion as California slowly eats itself alive.

California is becoming the biggest joke on the planet.
Look at the money they could save by just letting the kids stay home and watch educational TV and cartoons! And look at the enhancement of ‘family values’!

My kids actually DO stay home (we homeschool), and they DO watch educational TV and cartoons, as well as programs that don’t appear to be “educational” in a traditional “school” sense. Cartoons are rich with historical/cultural references, and are great discussion-starters. “Educational” programming can be found on a lot of cable stations, and offers much more entertaining and engaging presentations than a textbook with all of the content stripped out. There have been many, many times over the years that my son has been inspired by a subject that he has seen on TV, or has found a great TV program that meshs perfectly with his current interests. We also have the opportunity to discuss the viewpoints and any biases we notice in various shows as we are watching them, rather than having questionable information presented as “facts” in a public school classroom. Obviously, this won’t work for all families (and especially not all the families here in California, where “family” commitment seems to be at a minimum to begin with)–but it’s a big part of how we learn and it works for us!

I am on your side.
I was berating the attempt by the California education system to actually educate in critical thinking areas, where, it looks like you and yours have a firm grasp.
I know there are exceptions, and thankful there are.
I have two grandsons that have been at the top of their age group for years, and they haven’t been given any extraordinary education. Not bragging, but, heredity (and upbringing) helps. I think you know that.

suzeanne,
a long, but interesting comment/post. if you like i can suggest a writer for girls who does not “write down” for her audience, ann mccaffery, the author of the “dragonriders of pern” sci-fi/fantasy stories. she writes for a broad audience, with strong female and male characters, and her female characters play vital roles in the fictional society she has constructed. her audience is both male and female, from early teens to older adults. while i do not agree with all of her political ideas she is a good writer and tells a good tale.

I learned about George Washington and the other great men of history in my elementary education; I didn’t have any of the horror stories presented here.

My first year at university was something else though. We had “History of World Civilizations”. Thomas Jefferson was mentioned once in our book, with a whole chapter section devoted to Mary Wollenstonecraft Shelley. Just like the horror stories.

Of course creationists want to do the very same thing–their Bronze Age science is 2500 years behind what real scientists are doing, and so they want to use political power to force their “science” to be taught as equivalent to modern science.

Creationism, however, does not break my leg or pick my pocket. Marxism does both. As much as I detest creationism and the endlessly repeated lies and distortions of creationists (every single one of which have been displayed in the comments to zombie’s essay–they never have anything new), you have to pick the lesser of two evils.

When it comes to government you also have to weigh who has the authority to do what. And so I am comfortbale with a creationist Presidential candidate or Congressman, but I would under no circumstances vote for a creationist school board candidate.

Hang on; these are lefties picking three Presidents to make their heroes list and they wind up with Andrew Jackson? Andrew “The Supreme Court has made it’s ruling” Jackson? Andrew “Trail of Tears” Jackson? And for his sake neither Roosevelt makes the cut? Unreal.

Most likely. Jackson would be discussed just long enough to cover the Trail of Tears, just as Truman (why him, indeed?) would be discussed only in conjunction with the decision to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I didn’t get the Leftist distortion of history until college; our textbook, required for all freshman, had a chapter section on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley but only mentioned Thomas Jefferson once.

It is unfortunate that creationists must try to do to science what the Left does to history. A lot of things have happened since the Bronze Age, and so they have to try to use political power to force their myths and legends as equivalent to modern science.

But much as I detest the endlessly repeated lies and distortions of creationists–every single one of which has been on display multiple times in the comments to this essay–creationism neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket. Marxism will do both.

You have to consider, besides the lesser of two evils, what authority government officials have. I am quite comfortable with a creationist President or Senator, but under no circumstances would I vote to put one on the local school board.

I’ll bet that was a US History text book. Why would a US History textbook spend more time on Stalin than Nixon? If they did you would complain about too much attention to Stalin. Who by the way has never (for good reason) been represented as a good guy.

“I remember my son’s history textbooks had 5 pages on Nixon/Watergate and only 2 sentences on Stalin’s atrocities”

OK, but if the course is U.S. History, a unique event within our country, which it certainly was, would warrant more pages than events in the USSR, right? You see a political axe being ground (and it may be) but logic would also dictate more coverage for Watergate. This re-enforces my point about the difficulty of choosing events to cover in history.

While I agree that the horrors perpetrated by Stalin deserve to be very widely known, I’m skeptical that this will ever happen due to a simple bit of logic that even today’s students might follow. If Stalin gets examined even briefly in a history course, two things at least will surely have to emerge: that he was responsible for the deaths of many millions of his own people and that he was a Communist. (Reputable historians debate the numbers but it would appear that Stalin had anywhere from 20 million to 66 million victims.) I would expect that even a not-very-bright student would then make the association: “communist = bad” since even most leftists aren’t quite to the point of saying “mass murder is good”. As a result, much of the underpinning of the left’s ideology would be demolished. I just don’t see any leftist-inspired committee of teachers or bureaucrats allowing that. Far better to ignore Stalin for now. There will be plenty of time to present him – “in the proper context” – once all opposition to statism has been oppressed.

So they want a “sanitary” take on their educations system? How foolish is that. Since when could mankind say that their history was so spotless? And just saying that it is so, won’t make it so.
I have noticed elsewhere that these kinds of initatives usually precede the push for even more tolerance for Islam.
How does California expect to “sanitize” the enterainment industry in order to grovel to the so called sensitive feeling of Islam?

If they teach kids the past was so wonderful by re-writing history as if both genders and all races were equally acheiving, how will they nurture and grow a sense of victimhood and oppression necessary to make good future commies, err I mean Dem voters??

conversation with an 8 year old, who was reading about racial discrimination- I mentioned Jackie Robinson- she was astounded!! to find that sports was not integrated way back when, just could not even imagine a reason why or how it could be so.

We must not lie to the kids about the past- they must know what it was like then so they can appreciate how it is now…….and we have come a long way BABY!!

This is so Twentieth Century. Why should anyone be a local dictator of textbooks for the Right or Left?

E-books are relatively cheap. Text book publishers are necessary for content creation, but textbooks could easily be aimed at different markets. Every child could have an iPad or other tablet device and use it for four years to lower the costs. The teachers could assign texts for a class even if they have to write them themselves. Teacher written and published textbooks were commonplace in the Nineteenth Century.

This is all about the malicious consequences of Publicly Financed Monopoly Education. If parents could choose any school for their children (via vouchers or tuition tax credits), then those schools could position themselves in the Education Market by choosing a curriculum, and textbooks, to satisfy the parents politics and religion. If no school filled their needs, then the Parents could home school their children.

If there were fewer laws and regulations protecting the Public Schools from competition, then there could be neighborhood one room schools as there were in the Nineteenth Century. The State could have a role in defining a minimum curriculum, but children could be taught more than the minimum to satisfy the parent’s desires. The parent would be in charge, not some faceless bureaucracy. There could be no reasonable accusation of indoctrination.

The Left would object to this change, because they currently control most of the schools and indoctrinate children toward the Left and anti-religiosity. The longer one stays in school the further to the Left one gravitates. As Bill Buckley stated in his book “God and Man at Yale” it was difficult, even in the 1950s, to be Conservative and Religious at an Ivy League College.

Fortunately, most people reject this indoctrination when they get out into the business world. This is why, according to George Washington University’s Battleground poll, 60% of American’s consider themselves to be Conservative or very Conservative. The Left are about 20% of the country although they have a disproportionate influence in their centers of power — Mass Media, Education, Entertainment and the Bureaucracy.

Not really. Have a look at this article: http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/15322.html. It introduces The Kahn Academy, an online series of courses that were all made by one man, working for free, and offered free on YouTube. A lot of students all over the world are already using these videos to learn subjects from basic arithmetic to advanced mathematics. Once you’ve read the article, follow the links to the Kahn Academy’s YouTube channel and have a look at the huge variety of courses – over 1000 already! – that he offers.

Students would be much better informed if they read books written by people who were there, participating in history. Why did we ever accept the idea that students need leftist/communist “intellectuals” to interpret history in the form of textbooks?!

This is such a false equivalency. Trying to add diversity (or as you put it tokenism) to the curiculum maybe misguided and silly at times but it isn’t anywhere near the level blatent mendacity of Intelligent Design.

Also, if you are going to write a five page argumentative essay where you position yourself as the only fair voice of reason then the burden of proof is on you. This essay reads like a facebook diatribe. You have made so many unsubstantiated assertions and strawmen arguments I would have to write a 5 part essay to catalogue them. Here are a few lowlights from part 3 — sorry part III:

“The perfectly egalitarian communist utopia is an unattainable pipe dream, and any attempt to bring about this impossible society will only lead to pointless misery for a majority of the population”

Wow that is deep. No kidding! Who are these egalitarian communist utopia dreamers? So the California school board is trying to bring about a communist utopia? The Democrats? The whole statement sounds like it came from a high school student who just read Animal Farm. Communist utopia… yeah hear a lot about that these days from the “leftist”.

“Furthermore, reality doesn’t change simply because you’ve tricked a bunch of kids into believing a lie. Do the leftists seriously think that with sufficient brainwashing most young women will in fact permanently lose all biologically built-in mothering instincts and instead all strive to be firefighters or astronauts? That the facts of history will somehow alter to our liking if we twist them hard enough? (The answer, incredibly enough, is yes ”

Finally I see a link on the “yes” and think ahh he does have something to substantiate this wild assertion that “leftist” are trying to brainwash mothering instincts from girls. I had always believed the less inflammatory reason. It was nice to show girls they weren’t destined only to be mothers but could be whatever they wanted to be same as boys. Of course I didn’t know about the brainwashing at the time…. so I will just follow that link and …. what a book about Stalin. What does a dead tyrant from a defunct nation have to do with teaching children in this country?

The core of the problems with education – probably all of the current highlighted problems at least – is simply this: too much politics, too little doing. Everything is becoming politically controlled in the U.S. There is no private sphere wherein our individual choices matter for as much as one Continental cent. The only action which we may take without being first required to have some “authority” agree with our choice is to kill ourselves. After the fact, yes, everyone thinks they ought to have been consulted, but, really now!, have you seen a movement to make suicide a crime? How about “attempted suicide is a capital offense”? Rhetorical exaggeration aside, the source of nearly all of the social & economic problems in the U.S. today is that everything is “public”, everything is decided by one part or another of the government, whether local, state or federal. What’s next? Some state-level bureaucrat to apply federal law to determine who we may marry – that’s “which individual”, not “which gender”?

This slippery slope began and was preceded by the progenitors of “”Heather has two Mommies”, and the 1,001 deconstructionists tracts designed to eliminate gender, race, and any an all moral inhibiting biases that the politically secular left find irredeemable.

The foundation for all this crap is postmodern marxist angst irreducibly documented in Franz Fanon,s psychotic rantings and amazingly followed through an applied, I’m sure to their shame, by an organization called the Weatherman. It’s all documented and historically annotated, by its’ members and those who are apt to look under toilet seats.

The foundation? Homosexual abuse of society at every level. Yes, infiltrate every nook and cranny of a culture with it and soon the poison and narcotic effect….well just take a look America.

Look if you want to disassemble something yes be patient and go piece by piece; you want to do it fast rip out its’ heart.

Since I posted that, I’ve found the answer. It’s a review of The Commissar Vanishes, a book about Stalin’s falsified photos and art. The link still hits an NYT subscriber wall, but oddly enough, when I googled the URL and clicked the first result, I got through.

You are off somewhat on the self-esteem definition, self-esteem is shallow and merely means you need to be happy with yourself, so if you lose at whatever, you are crushed, and in most cases a poor sport about your failure. You’ll most likely look for someone to blame for it. It’s self respect that ballasts you for failure because self respect has to be earned, at that point you understand the deeper meaning of the concept because it involves others in the give take world of work and play, of the respect you can give and get for striving to be the best. So when you fail at something you show good sportsmanship and are ready to learn from your mistakes rather then sulk in the defeat for an enorddinet amount of time. It also give you the ability to judge others in this respect and you can build strong relationship in all aspects of life thus reaching that happy with yourself stuff.

I finished reading Leszek Kozlowski’s book on Marxism and it was an eye opener. I would like to have a good source for criticism of Marxist ideas from the point where Kozlowski lets off until the present. Kozlowski did not foresee the current culture war since Marxism was so thoroughly discredited by the Soviet Union and its apologists in the West.

As for why the New Left would not want to see images in textbooks of women taking care of babies, blacks in sports and asians on computers its for 2 reasons. The first is the “pure” Marxist outlook that its the demands of the current mode of Capitalism that has put these groups into a certain mold. Women are “required” to be baby raisers, blacks are in a sense “required” by the demands of modern Capitalist media to pursue sports and Asians are useful to Capitalist industries as number crunchers. In “service” to the “future” the Marxist outlook is to circumvent the requirements of Capitalism as much as possible to create the socialist consciousness needed for man to take the next step in his development.

The second reason is the “Marxist Mentality”. The Marxist Mentality consists of why so many are attracted to Marxism to the point that they will support someone like Stalin willingly. It may be shocking to think that Stalin was willingly supported but the totalitarian society required that everyone play along and if they could not have reached a point where they had sufficient mass for force against those who would not play along the Stalinist/Leninists could not have succeeded. Basically Marxism appeals to those whose talent consists of the ability to inform. You may not have the talent to be the greatest musician but you are good enough to be a professional and to let the government know why the musical statement made by a better musician is against Marxist progress. You can then get rubber stamped into being the best musician. This was a common way of life under Stalin and is practiced every day in its own way by the Left. Their own “Marxist” consciousness is proof of their own superiority. The ideology serves not as a means to the end that never comes but as a means to justify power by the objectively lesser.

Women are not to be shown in the role of motherhood, blacks in sports and Asians with computers because they have succeeded at these activities. The ultimate role of the textbook is to glorify and enrich the EDUCATOR!!! Censoring reality shows the EDUCATORS SUPERIORITY OVER REALITY. The conversation we are really having is about the control the educators have and not about whether they are true to reality. It says they have succeeded in gaining success through control. The educators then contend they are deserving of this success because they can show an “objective or scientific” social goal. They have achieved a means of creating an economic niche for themselves out of nothing and even get to feel intellectual and gifted by doing it. If they can get some graft on the side all the better. This is the true goal of the Marxist even if it is not the goal of “Marxism”. Kozlowski calls it rule by the Parvenu.

I call I don’t have to pay anymore school taxes until they stop the indoctrination process!!

Furthermore, I feel if we are so ‘progressive’ and ‘fair’ then I feel those who choose to have children should pay the brunt of their education. K-12. I don’t have any children so why should I be paying as much tax as those with? And, for the rhetoric that passes for education these days? Especially if all the talk is ‘that the schools, the ‘teachers or the education and whatever the new problem is at the time – is so bad’??
(No offense to those who have children)

Seriously, I constantly hear about more tax dollars needed for education, – for our schools, ‘for the children’ for our youth. This has been for the past 15 years and I still keep hearing how our ‘schools are failing’… Are you kidding me??!!. How many years, and how many da#m tax dollars does it take to ‘fix’ something ?? So, I have come to the conclusion of 4 things – we have too many tenured horrible teachers, we have unteachable youth, I’m paying for an education for a kid who isn’t even a citizen, or I’m paying taxes just to keep funding the teachers over bloated Union Pensions AND not much money is actually going to the ‘schools’ ‘our children’ or our youth. How does all this happen??
I cannot be that wrong??

Our last vote in our town for the School Budget, I voted against the increase. We are in tough times and hell, cut back somewhere – ‘I have to’.

You would think the 2% they wanted (and didn’t get – unanimously) – by the backlash about it, the whole school system would have collapsed!!! Are you kidding me??? Well, sorry, but the ‘guilt trip’ I wasn’t falling for…

Could there possibly be a different reason why women aren’t shown as taking care of children, Asians aren’t working on computers, and Blacks aren’t in sports other than the nefarious purposes you all assume? Sometimes people don’t want to show stereotypes to the point they go overboard. I’m not saying that what the editors are doing isn’t stupid, but in my handbook on liberal world domination, this isn’t one of the things listed. You’re absolutely right that political correctness has run amuck to the point that people who have made real contributions are sidelined by others for no other purpose than multi-culturism. These are stupid decisions, but certainly not done to destroy America.

Why in the world would I want to level everyone out? It’s impossible to make everyone the same, and does a disservice to all involved.

Oh, and what is the homo-sexual rights agenda? What do homosexuals want that heterosexuals don’t get? I hear about the ‘agenda,’ but have yet to read the particulars.

Oh, and what is the homo-sexual rights agenda? What do homosexuals want that heterosexuals don’t get? I hear about the ‘agenda,’ but have yet to read the particulars.

Don’t play ignorant.

The agenda consists of at least the following: (a) the ability to have homosexual preference legally deemed a condition of no more import than eye color, despite the mass of evidence contrary to the “born this way” official narrative that same-sex practices are indeed fluid and subject to change; (b) the ability to legally compel an absence of social sanctions to homosexual practices; (c) the ability to legally compel an absence of public teaching contrary to the equivalence doctrine; (d) the ability to legally forbid private entities the right of free association as grounds for excluding homosexuals in social matters (adoption, hiring, renting, etc.); (e) the redefinition of marriage and family to erase the normative relationship of one man and one woman to childrearing.

This all goes back to a fundamental understanding of the human person, as I have described on other comments to Zombie’s posts (it may be one of the previous ones). Now, there are many conditions, acquired or innate, which the public through its representatives has in the past deemed equally harmful on a rational basis. Shall we overturn the sanctions against all of them? If you juridically redefine the understanding of the human person so as to deny the public the right to exercise its rational capacity for governance, you pretty much overthrow the principle of self-government itself.

I wasn’t playing ignorant. I really have never heard anything other than homosexual marriage is going to ruin the institution of marriage. In addition, I asked you to provide examples of what homosexuals want that heterosexuals don’t have. I, with my husband, am born a heterosexual, I can set up a household with my husband, I can’t be denied the ability to adopt, get hired, rent a place based on the fact that I’m heterosexual, and my husband and I can marry. It doesn’t look like heterosexuals are asking for anything I’m not getting.

Homosexuality is a preference? That’s amazing. All the gay people I’ve ever known have stated openly that they would never choose to be reviled, beaten, and ridiculed. Please provide links for the mass of evidence. Homosexuality occurs in many animals. Why wouldn’t it occur naturally in humans? There was a child I met who was in Kindergarten with my son. I looked at that child and said to myself, “He’s gay.” He’s a Senior in High School now, and finally came out. It’s amazing that I could see that this boy would ‘choose’ a lifestyle when he was 5-6. In addition, I’m going to try not to be crass, but I don’t know how else to put this. If you see a picture of a naked woman in a magazine, is there a physical reaction? Most gay men don’t have that reaction. However, they do have a similar reaction when seeing pictures of naked men. Where’s the choice?

What are social sanctions to homosexual practices?

I’m guessing that the equivalence doctrine means it’s ok in society for a child to have two dads or two moms? It’s my understanding that it’s best for children to grow up in a loving environment, preferably with two parents. Would you agree with that statement? In addition, any studies that have compared the children of homosexual couples vs. heterosexual couples don’t show that the kids of homosexuals have been harmed. I’m willing to be skeptical about the studies, as I don’t think there’s a big enough population of kids of homosexuals to get good data. Would you consider it a problem if two divorced moms ended up living together with their kids in order to pool assets and save money? That would be part of the ‘equivalence doctrine, wouldn’t it? If not, then why?

Do you think it’s ok to deny someone the ability to get hired, rent an apartment, adopt a child based on their gender or skin color? I would hope your answer would be no. If that’s the case, why is ok to deny these abilities because they’re gay?

Normative relationships are fluid things. 100 years ago, Mormons could have more than one wife. 500 years ago, marriage was decided as a political decision, with no real input from the woman (nor the man sometimes). 1000 years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for a man to have a wife, with multiple mistresses that the wife knew about. These were all normal for their time within their culture. How about this? Instead of using the word marriage, let’s use civil unions. This way, the church can marry you and your wife, but you will be deemed to have a civil union in the eyes of the government. this allows John and Steve to have a civil union, but not be married (if their church doesn’t allow it). Please note, I am not implying that this is a slippery slope to marriage to children (which, by the way, was fairly normal not much more than 100 years ago), nor to animals, as neither have the capacity to sign legal documents – thank you very much for not going there.

Once again, we are talking past one another. You assume without proof that skin color and homosexuality are equally irrelevant characteristics, while ignoring that skin color has no intrinsic relationship to behavior while homosexuality is defined by it.

Homosexuality is a “preference” in the sense of a disposition, like the bottle is a preference for alcoholics. I don’t think gays prefer to be reviled anymore than alcoholics do. You can argue all you want that it’s innate and not chosen, but that point is really irrelevant: there are many behavioral dispositions that are punished in law such that people are expected to refrain. You can argue all you want that gays are no public harm such as alcoholics are, but the public has heretofore always disagreed. If you think 99% of all humans in recorded history are unfit to decide, you may have a problem with democracy in principle.

“Homosexuality occurs in many animals.”

So does rape, cannibalism, and murder of rival males’ offspring. What exists in animal instinct is not a reliable guide to human ethical standards. Part of being human is learning to act contrary to one’s lower instincts in choosing behavior. The question here is not whether instincts ought to be suppressed, but which ones.

Virtually every civilization has viewed homosexuality as an instinct to be overcome. The public has softened on this to the extent that they are willing to tolerate open expression of homosexuality so long as they are not forced to declare it good. To make homosexuality truly normative and not merely tolerated, it is necessary to have the contrary opinion declared thoughtcrime. That explains the vehement push-back; people recoil when the state demands control over their thoughts.

“100 years ago, Mormons could have more than one wife.”

And it was deemed sufficiently problematic by others that Utah had to ban the practice in order to be admitted into the Union.

This is why I used the words “rational basis” earlier. In constitutional law, if the court does not find that a law implicates rights explicitly in the Constitution, then the law is presumed to have a “rational basis” and the court defers to the legislative branch. Now, nothing since then has been added to the Constitution either to define marriage or define homosexuals as a protected class of persons. Therefore, the public’s right to decide has not changed either.

“You assume without proof that skin color and homosexuality are equally irrelevant characteristics, while ignoring that skin color has no intrinsic relationship to behavior while homosexuality is defined by it.”

I would argue that skin color has a much more instinsic relationship to behavior than sexual preference is. One can hide his homosexuality. It’s difficult to hide skin color. You (I’m assuming) and I are white. We can walk into a retail store wearing jeans and a T-shirt and not expect to be followed around with the assumption we’re ready to shoplift. Black folks can’t, and that has to effect their personality. How can it not?

Being homosexual is a personality trait? I’ve met plenty of people who, if I wasn’t told, I would never know if they’re gay or not. Is heterosexuality a personality trait? You’re also equating homosexuality with alcoholism? Gee, I didn’t know people were born alcoholics. I thought that came about from a outside influence, usually self induced.

Your argument was that homosexuals aren’t born that way. If that’s the case, we wouldn’t see the same thing in nature. By the way, rape doesn’t happen often in nature – I think the only known cases are among the primates, our closest relatives. The other examples aren’t germain to the discussion.

Why is homosexuality an instinct to be overcome? What behavorial dispositions that cause no harm to others are punished by law?

No one is saying that if you think homosexuality is wrong, you’ve committed a ‘thoughtcrime.’ I can think whatever I like about muslims or jews or New Yorkers or blacks or…. As long as I don’t act on any of those thoughts, I haven’t committed any crimes. And up to 150 years ago more people than not thought slavery was just fine and 100 years ago it was ok for women to not be able to vote. Just because the majority thinks it’s ok to discriminate against others doesn’t make it right – that’s mob rule, something the founding fathers weren’t really that keen on.

Gays don’t want to be a protected class any more than you and I need to be a protected class. They just want the same rights you and I get to take for granted.

I asked what the Gay ‘Agenda’ was. You told me, and I gave you a response based on the many gay people I have spoken with and been friends with over the years. The ‘Agenda’ is nothing more than asking for basic rights. Why is that wrong, and again I ask, what is it that they want that you and I don’t already have?

A meaningless term conjured up by the bible thumping far right wingnut contingent which is roughly analagous to the tinfoil-hat charge of “Darwinist agenda.” The notion that gays are born gay or “acquire” homosexuality at an early age via biological and/or environmental agents (c.f. Dr Greg Cochran) flies in the face of their biblically informed belief that homosexuality is a sin and thus “wrong.” It goes downhill from there, including the use of crap data and statistics etc (similar to that imagined to “disprove” evolution) as a crutch to support their charge that being gay is a “lifestyle choice.” Disagree with them, and you’re labeld one of the brainwashed useful idiots supporting the homosexual rights AGENDA. Ironically, as with evolution, the only agenda is on the part of those who have issue with it.

Mr. President, is that you? Good to see you branching out from “bitter clingers”! Maybe you’ll be less dependent on that teleprompter after a few more sessions with Olbermann.

P.S.: remember, don’t pound the facts or pound the law, pound the table; everyone already knows about “lesbian until graduation”, and people are starting to read what the Constitution actually says and they can’t find all these emanations and penumbrae.

Psychological Modeling – Is there any evidence pro or con? Obviously it must be true to an extent. Families tend to replicate values and behaviors down the generations: not consistently or infallibly but generally true. However, I have not ever seen any study that attempted to identify what processes were in place and which were most succesful (adult behavior probably far outweighs images and storylines in books). Instinctively, particularly for younger children, I suspect there is little or no impact of psychological modelling in children’s books but I would be curious if there have ever been any studies that attempted to test the proposition and whether the results were in the affirmative or negative.

“The teachers and educators seem to have forgotten that kids don’t even know the basics yet, so that when you feed them an alternate set of facts which were only meant to counteract the longstanding un-PC status quo, the students in their innocence and ignorance learn only that alternate reality and never learn that status quo it was meant to neutralize.”

seem to have forgotten … ? It is precisely because they have NOT forgotten it that they do it. What is the point of indoctrination if you also present the conventional history along with this new-fangled indoctrination history to young minds who don’t know anything? If you really want to indoctrinate, you would do precisely what these dummies are doing—feed ONLY onsided nonsensical PC garbage to young minds who have no notion what the truth is, and for whom the textbooks and teachers loom big on their young budding intellectual horizon.

In the mean time, Blacks of astonishing accomplishment, who DID change the world — Vivien Thomas, for example, who pioneered the heart surgery that is now routine — are overlooked, possibly because their narratives don’t fit the desired model. The deaf white woman, for example, while an exemplary role model, was — gasp! — a PEDIATRICIAN! How DARE she, a woman, promote the stereotype of women as loving babies? And Vivien Thomas was guided and helped by a WHITE man. Tsk, tsk.

The story is mind blowing, and could get a real discussion going about how real breakthroughs are made, in so many areas of endeavor.